For some reason, there has always been this silly notion that America has been from its inception a classless society. In America, even to broach the subject is embarrassing. Paul Blumberg in his book, Inequality in an Age of Decline, call it "America's forbidden thought." It may be a forbidden topic and even an embarrassing subject for many, but it is nevertheless, a social reality. And it always has been. I think this myth was popularized by Alexis de Tocqueville, who upon his arrival from France in 1831, was immediately impressed with the lack of social classes as compared to feudal Europe, and popularized the idea in his book, Democracy in America. In contrast to France, he stated that Americans seemed to manage their own affairs with little government control. He became convinced America was the model of reform for France, even though he noted the slavocracy was the closest thing to an aristocracy in the United States. The importance of his book is it helped to establish the United States as the paradigm of the new democratic age and made Americans feel exceptional. Nowhere else in the world was there a government based on democracy, equality and freedom like in America. However, this was pure nonsense as American society was based on slavery and the trade and profits derived from it. Although the New England states had abolished slavery, they continued to control the trade, in fact, Rhode Island was the U.S. headquarters for the triangular trade. Moreover, there were distinct classes in America at the time of Tocqueville's visit, albeit they differed in form from those of Europe. Merchants and Planters formed the upper class, small farmers formed the middle class, while newly arriving immigrants and indentured servants formed the lower class, and enslaved Afrikans functioned as an underclass. Looking at today's class structure we find that that there are six contemporary socioeconomic classes, which are group people according to wealth, income, education, occupation, and membership in a social network. For the sake of our discussion we will identify them as such: 1) an upper or capitalist class (bankers, CEO's) consisting of the rich and powerful, 2) an upper middle class consisting of highly educated and affluent professionals (creative class is part of this group, top entertainers, top athletes, top lawyers and doctors), 3) a middle class consisting of college-educated individuals employed in white-collar industries, 4) a lower middle class, 5) a working class constituted by clerical and blue collar workers whose work is highly routinized, and 6) a lower class divided between the working poor (service class) and the unemployed underclass. Where does politics fit in this class divide? According to Robert Dahl, “a key characteristic of a democracy is the continued responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals.” But in real politicks politicians do not considered all their constituents as equal. Wealthier and better-educated citizens are more likely than poorer and less-educated ones to have well-formulated and well-informed preferences. They are more likely to turn out to vote, much more likely to have direct contact with public officials, and much more likely to contribute money and energy to political campaigns. Dahl therefore asks, “In a political system where nearly every adult may vote but where knowledge, wealth, social position, access to officials, and other resources are unequally distributed, who actually governs?” Well, politicians have been answering this question all along, and the answer has never been clearer than in recent years.

The vocabulary of Social darwinism

For half a decade, the percent of Americans living below the poverty line has increased each year, from 12.3 percent in 2006 to 15.1 percent in 2010. Record numbers of Americans remain poor. Wednesday, the Census Bureau reported that 15% of Americans, 46.2 million people, live below the poverty line.Median real household income fell 1.7 percent, to $62,273, and income inequality rose in 2011. The GINI index, a common measure of inequality, rose 1.6 percent from 2010 to 2011. Nobel Prize-winning liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz shows in his The Price of Inequality: "The American dream is a myth. The American dream is dead." And it's not just liberals who have been voiced this concern. Charles Murray's Coming Apart anatomizes the mores of "a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America," and a "new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America's core cultural institutions."

The rise in inequality seems to be at the expense of the middle class, and to the benefit of the rising income of the upper class. The real income of the upper classes rose a total of 6.5 percent, while the middle-income quintiles fell nearly 1.9 percent. The rate of the extremely poor—people earning less than half of the official poverty threshold, it comprised 6.6 percent of the population. And it has nothing to do with whether one is a Republican or Democrat, as the increasing economic disparity has happened under both party's leadership in Congress and the oval office.

I guess the point of this article is America could do better. If a country like Venezuela, with a lower GDP, lower HDI, and a smaller economy can erase illiteracy, improve the standard of life for the poor, then why can't America. While the U.S. condemns Socialism, we continue to see nations with socialist or mixed economic approaches do a lot for their people. Yet America continues to cling to its Capitalism and Social Darwinist ideology. In “The Rebirth of Social Darwinism” political economist Robert Reich makes an interesting point about presidential candidates labeled conservatives. He says they are “regressives,” (reactionaries is the real word, he was being nice) desiring to take America back to the politics of the Gilded Age, when “social Darwinism offered a moral justification for the wild inequities and social cruelties of the late nineteenth century.” “Government should do little or nothing to help those in need because that would interfere with natural selection,” of which “millionaires are the product.” President Obama himself has even called Republican policy proposals “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” .Unfortunately, Social Darwinist ideology is shared by Republicans and Democrats alike--its the American way. The Horatio Alger "rags to riches" stories were masked Social Darwinist ideology.

This brings me to an essential point and one I argue in my book Distorted Truths: All inequalities and inhumanities are ultimately explained away because the human being is defined as an animal. How can we expect Western society to develop an equitable society when he views the world as a “rat race,” as “dog eat dog,“ or embraces ideas like “every man for himself?” These Western colloquialisms reflect the Western gestalt and have been reinforced by Western science’s canon that “man” is an animal, a gift from Charles Darwin. And if one believes he is an animal, he will act accordingly. At the core of his being he believes he is an animal. His rhetorical ethics speaks of human beings, human values, but Western behavior is animal-like. Afrikans do not perceive the human being as an animal, but as a composite of all life that exist in the universe. To the Afrikan, the Earth is our mother; Though the West has adopted this idea from us, true to his worldview, he treats the Earth more like an object, worst an enemy but not as a loved one.

It is this Western misconception of the human being and his relationship to the Earth that is at the basis of his classism, of his have versus have-nots system. We call it Capitalism now, but it'll be the same approach to the human being, and life itself, that will remain unchanged, but allow us to call his new system another name. The same game under a new name.

The class system can be found in almost any society in the world, the only difference being that it is well defined in some societies than others. In Europe it is very well defined, go to countries like India it is under the guise of religion where a certain class which is nearer to god is certainly better than others. United States of America being a highly hypocritical society practice the highest form of human inequality. The only good thing is the fact that US government takes care of its poor through its government funded welfare programs.

Reply

David

3/29/2013 07:32:11 pm

However much we may loath the capitalist system, its seems the best tried way of governance of societies. How many communist republics remain in the world today? Even in the communist republics, the class system will ever apply. The erosion of the American dream has been eroded by and by by citizens lowering their expectations of the quality of life they desire. In my opinion, the American dream cannot be rekindled, as there are numerous capitalists who see in the problems that the country faces, see opportunities.

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Felix

3/31/2013 08:10:54 am

In this class system, members of the upper class would not want anything to change because it would threaten their privileges and comforts. The same upper class controls just about anything, so they will suppress any ideas, like socialism, that seek to even things out a bit. America's aggressive capitalism will be its ultimate undoing. Poor Americans will one day get fed up with their system of government. Protests like 'occupy wall street' will one day become big revolutions uniting the lower and middle-classes against the upper classes.

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Kimani Muhia

10/1/2013 05:50:56 am

I do not see how we will ever get to a place where inequality will be a thing of the past. We have different socio-economic classes in the world. Just like you have mentioned, the middle class seems to be affected the most. They are torn in between those who are rich and those who are poor. They seem to lose their identity and cannot clearly establish to which class they belong to. If only we would shun all these classes and live as humans then the world would definitely be a better place.